Eberron...pulp fantasy?

[ColonelHardisson]

Pulp goes beyond sword & sorcery like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and Conan. It includes stuff along the lines of Jack Vance's "Planet of Adventure" stories and even Stanley Weinbaum's story about Mars. Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books are also definitely in that vein. High adventure, lots of unusual races, ancient evils, unexplained occurrences, non-stop action, colorful locations...this is all pulp.

I think too many people see the word "pulp," think Robert E. Howard's "Conan," and get the idea it's all dark fantasy hack 'n' slash. I'd also mention Doc Smith's "Lensmen" stories, especially the ones that feature nonhumans, even nonhuman Lensmen, as being good examples of the type of "pulp" feel Eberron is going for.

It's difficult to explain to someone who hasn't read pulp fiction extensively how Indiana Jones, Conan, Sam Spade, and Stanley Weinbaum's (and ER Burroughs'!) Martians are all definite pulp elements despite not having much in common when you set them down beside each other. But they definitely all are pulp in nature. I'd say that treating Eberron more like Vance's "Planet of Adventure" would be a better way to go at it than trying to rationalize how Fafhrd and the Mouser and Conan fit into it.

 

[jokamachi]

LOL!! You guys can't even decide if the setting is pulp or not. Not a good sign, people.

I can't decide whether Eberron sucks or blows.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

LOL!! You guys can't even decide if the setting is pulp or not. Not a good sign, people.

I can't decide whether Eberron sucks or blows.

I don't have a problem deciding. It is.

Been to Circus Maximus yet...?

 

[JohnSnow]

In my opinion, Eberron absolutely IS "pulp."

But defining pulp is tricky. It's a feel, a style, an attitude. The best definition is to compare the various pulp stories for similarities. Some people claim it's an imaginary genre. Many others, myself included, would disagree.

However, I'm the first to admit D&D has had a certain amount of pulp influence from its inception. Eberron just...turns the "pulp influence" dial up a couple notches. Not that SOME people haven't done this before, but there's never before been a published setting that did it.

Best way I can put it.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

In my opinion, Eberron absolutely IS "pulp."

But defining pulp is tricky. It's a feel, a style, an attitude. The best definition is to compare the various pulp stories for similarities. Some people claim it's an imaginary genre. Many others, myself included, would disagree.

Like just about any genre, "pulp" can be nebulous and hard to define. Think about it - can anyone here really come up with a definition of science fiction or fantasy that can't easily be poked full of holes? That's a rhetorical question, of course, because it really can't be done.

 

[Faraer]

While of course it's not a genre (and I don't recall anyone claiming that it was? ) it's a recognizable style. Your dismissal of it as 'imaginary' is more nonsense than to claim pulp as a genre anyway.

Several posts above do refer to it as genre. What I'm saying is that the modern idea of 'pulp fiction' is misleading stereotype based on arbitrarily selected elements from the pulps given arbitrary importance, modified by elements of subsequent fiction subjectively thought to have an affinity with them. It's a modern cultural construct that shouldn't be confused with the pulps themselves.

 

[wayne62682]

Most of my thoughts have already been echoed by others.. Eberron is "pulp" because the focus is on the action; it's perfectly allowable to have the "red line" appear for the PCs to get from Point A to Point B, and not worry about random encounters or whatnot like in "traditional" D&D. Now, granted, you can still do that in any other D&D game, but its outlined as a "This is how you should play the setting" sort of guideline in Eberron. Of course, part of that trick requires players who understand that and don't try to play Eberron like "traditional" D&D.. otherwise the "magic" of the setting is lost.

 

[JohnSnow]

Several posts above do refer to it as genre. What I'm saying is that the modern idea of 'pulp fiction' is misleading stereotype based on arbitrarily selected elements from the pulps given arbitrary importance, modified by elements of subsequent fiction subjectively thought to have an affinity with them. It's a modern cultural construct that shouldn't be confused with the pulps themselves.

Genre and style are two of the most mixed up words in classification. Is Pulp a genre or a style? Well...really, it's a style. But it's a style with strong genre elements, so I occasionally refer to it as a genre. I really meant style...sorry for the confusion.

As to the rest...well...the stereotype is based on the elements of the pulps that were basically invented FOR the pulps and not immediately replicated in other media. So, 50 years later, there were several story-types that everyone remembered as having originated with the pulps. And THOSE types of stories are thought of as the basis for "pulp" fiction.

You're of course free to disagree, but denouncing it on the basis that it's a post-facto classification is like claiming the Renaissance is imaginary because the people at the time didn't call it that.

 

[Odhanan]

Several posts above do refer to it as genre. What I'm saying is that the modern idea of 'pulp fiction' is misleading stereotype based on arbitrarily selected elements from the pulps given arbitrary importance, modified by elements of subsequent fiction subjectively thought to have an affinity with them. It's a modern cultural construct that shouldn't be confused with the pulps themselves.

Do you mean that authors published in pulp didn't have a clear idea of being part of a genre? And that now, decades later, we see some patterns among the stories published in pulp and just sort of come up with a definition of a "genre"?

If that's what you mean, you are right.

Doesn't mean the patterns aren't consistent, though. Like you said, these are then two different things we're talking about.

 

[Drowbane]

While Lovecraft and C.A. Smith might have written for some of the early pulp magazines, I have a hard time calling anything that either of them wrote as pulp. Their respective styles have absolutely -nothing- in common with the 'pulp' style that Ebberon seems to have.

Don't forget the Daelkyr and other "Elder Evils" from the twisted realms of Xoriat.